


to hold it against your bones

by delayofgame



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1800s, Friendship, Gen, Maritime AU, Non-Linear Narrative
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-30
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:28:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26726707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/delayofgame/pseuds/delayofgame
Summary: Jeremy turns eastward toward the developing light. The sun peeks over the horizon, just barely, like a shy greeting. The sky above it is streaked orange and yellow. It’s a magical thing as it rises, light and color so pure and vibrant that it could never be captured, not on canvas nor in memory. It’s as if a hole has opened up in the sky and Heaven itself is pouring out into the sea.
Relationships: Charlie Coyle/Chris Wagner, Jeremy Lauzon & Matt Grzelcyk
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10





	to hold it against your bones

**Author's Note:**

> me? writing very specific aus that nobody asked for? yup
> 
> clearly i've been reading too much nautical fiction but i couldn't NOT write this once i got the idea. this takes place in the 1830s on a merchant ship traveling from boston to the west coast. at this time, ships had to sail around cape horn at the southern tip of south america, making the trip take about 6 and a half months.
> 
> title is from _in blackwater woods_ by mary oliver.

**September 1837**

Jeremy stirs and wakes up slowly, the rough wooden bottom of the bunk above him coming into focus. He isn’t sure what had caused him to wake up, but the ship is pitching and rolling over waves more than it had been during the evening, seemingly coming upon a rough patch of the sea. A particularly large jolt makes Jeremy knock his knee against the wall.

Nobody else is awake as far as Jeremy can tell. It’s impossible to determine the time of day from the sleeping quarters, far below deck as they are and without any way to let in the sunlight, so it could still be the middle of the night for all Jeremy knows. He tells himself to go back to sleep. There’s no point in waking before the day begins, all that does is ensure fatigue and poor work. 

Jeremy rolls over in his bunk. The knots in the wooden wall begin to look like faces through the haze of his boredom, mouths wide in horror and agony and pain. He closes his eyes but he still sees them; they get worse, actually, the emotions more visceral and realistic. Jeremy rolls over and stares at the bunks across the room instead.

Eventually, he can’t stand tossing and turning any longer. He throws his legs over the edge of his bunk and stands, trying to distribute his weight evenly across the wood planks to avoid waking the rest of the crew. Someone lets out a snore as Jeremy pads across the floor. He wraps his fingers around the rungs of the ladder up to the deck, looking behind him to check if he’s made too much noise. 

He’s met with peaceful, sleeping faces. 

Jeremy hoists himself up and onto the deck, straightening his bedclothes and running a hand through his messy hair. The waves seem to have calmed slightly and he has no trouble making his way toward the stern.

The sky is light grey, a distinctive early-morning shade dotted with fading stars. The water looks murky and treacherous. Jeremy still isn’t used to the bleakness of the open seas, the way that the horizon stretches on forever and makes one feel more alone in the world than he ever thought possible. He hasn’t had the opportunity to truly appreciate that until now. He’s spent nearly all of his time not eating or sleeping on his daily tasks; scrubbing the deck, repairing the rigging, fitting the ropes and yards with chafing gear. Life as a common sailor is a lot less idle than he had expected. 

Jeremy turns eastward toward the developing light. The sun peeks over the horizon, just barely, like a shy greeting. The sky above it is streaked orange and yellow. It’s a magical thing as it rises, light and color so pure and vibrant that it could never be captured, not on canvas nor in memory. It’s as if a hole has opened up in the sky and Heaven itself is pouring out into the sea. 

“You’re up early,” a voice comes from above. 

Jeremy startles and looks up, his eyes meeting the second mate sitting alone in the crow’s nest. 

“So are you,” Jeremy replies. “I woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep.”

Torey leans over the side of the barrel. “I’m on lookout duty. Not a lot of folks are eager to sit idle and keep watch, but this makes it worth it.”

He gestures to the horizon. “Just myself, the sun, and the seas.”

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” Jeremy mutters.

Torey frowns. “No, don’t worry yourself! It does get lonesome at times. I don’t mind some company every now and then, it makes the time go by faster.”

He makes his way down the ladder and stands beside Jeremy, leaning against the side of the ship and looking out over the water. His face is young, his skin yet to be leathered by the salt and the wind, his features sharp and legible. Torey has the manner of someone far beyond his years but his round, russet-brown doe’s eyes strike no fear into the hearts of the common sailors. 

Jeremy has known older sailors back in Canada, true veterans of the mast. Their faces had been worn so that their mouths hardly stood out from the wrinkle lines slowly carved into their skin. Their noses seemed to barely protrude; the bones in their cheeks and jaws were nothing but memories; their eyes, sharp and fiery as they remained, were barely visible beneath heavy brows. Their bellies were round with tavern food after years of nothing but salt beef and hardtack. They spun tales of giant whales and vicious pirates, laughing with each other over the struggles they endured. Jeremy, just a child at the time, was struck with both wonder and fear. Enough wonder to respect them but enough fear to keep himself from dreaming. 

“How often does someone come and join you during watch?” Jeremy asks.

Torey cocks his head as if to genuinely search for an exact number. “Not too often. Sometimes I gently shoo them away if they’re disrupting my peace. But you’re… one of the more placid ones, to be honest. I like that about you. Some of the boys can’t keep their mouths shut long enough to hem a sail without a scolding from Chris.”

There are two other first-timers on this journey, both sharing the bottom rung of the hierarchical ladder with Jeremy. They all spent their first night together up on the deck, fighting off seasickness, talking about themselves to distract from the fact that they were too nervous to sleep. Jeremy is more familiar with them than the rest of the crew for that reason. He also knows for a fact that they’re part of the group Torey is talking about.

Trent is the youngest on the ship, but quickly asserted himself as strong and capable. He can string up the sails while barely breaking a sweat and roll an entire cask of water across the deck. Ask him to scrape the rust from the anchor or run the spun-yarn winch, however, and he’ll quickly lose patience. His nose scrunches up beneath his freckles as he tosses menial tasks aside. He’s from out West, he always says, and can’t get used to the idea that he always needs to be occupied with something. _You all don’t appreciate idleness_. 

This repeatedly earns him a scolding from the first mate, but they all know it’s a losing battle and Trent doesn’t push too far. He’s not exactly at risk of an accusation of mutiny.

The other man yet to earn his sea legs is named Brandon. He’s tall and clumsy, but also quite the perfectionist. He leaves the deck so spotless that everyone else has to work harder so they don’t look worse in comparison, and they all resent him for it. He’s the first one the cook calls when he needs extra hands in the kitchen because he does everything meticulously. His socks always seem to be dry at night, even after a day of rough waves splashing over the deck, and a few men have become suspicious that he might be allowed to dry them in the galley while others cannot. It seems that the cook is allowed to play favorites because the point is never brought to the captain’s attention.

Jeremy enjoys their company; it’s comforting to struggle alongside others rather than alone. 

Jeremy and Torey stand in silence for a while longer. The sun has almost lifted itself up and over the horizon. When it becomes fully visible and the streaks of fire across the sky fade away, it will be time for the work day to begin

Suddenly, a voice comes, loud and booming, from behind them. 

“Good morning, gentlemen.”

Jeremy turns around quickly and finds the first mate standing above them on the quarter deck. He has a grin plastered across his face and his pale eyes sparkle in the morning light. 

“Chris,” Torey acknowledges, nodding politely. “Looks like calm waters today now that the rough patch has passed.”

Jeremy gives Chris a small bow, which feels excessive the moment he does it and, indeed, subjects him to a humored expression on the man’s face. 

“I’m pleased to see you up so early and eager,” Chris says. “I used to catch the odd sunrise myself back when I was a young man.”

Jeremy is about to explain his trouble falling back asleep, but doesn’t want to come across as making complaints or carping to an officer. It’s best to nod and keep one’s mouth shut, just as a general rule of life at sea, and especially around those with more power than oneself. 

Chris lets a long breath out through his nose. “The captain wants to see a productive day. We’re coming up on the West Indies. Cape Horn will be before us sooner than you know, and there cannot be a single rotten plank or leak by the time we reach it.”

It’s funny, how Chris can go from conversational and friendly to stern at a moment’s notice. He takes his job seriously, from all accounts, but also seems to genuinely enjoy his duties. Jeremy doesn’t have prior experience with other deck officers but he could guess that it’s a rare trait.

The rest of the crew wake up rather quickly after that, coming one after the other up onto the deck. The turning to goes smoothly and Jeremy enjoys a biscuit with a smear of marmalade on top before fetching his materials to start scrubbing down the deck.

“I noticed your bunk was empty this morning,” Matt says, kneeling down and grabbing the sponge out of his bucket. He’s a more seasoned sailor but sleeps in the bunk above Jeremy’s and has taken a bit of a liking to him. Early on in the journey he had noticed Jeremy struggling with the rigging, and has been tutoring him on sea life ever since.

Jeremy nods. “I woke early for some peculiar reason. I couldn’t get myself back to sleep so I went up on the deck to watch the sunrise.”

“Oh, how lovely,” Matt says, a genuine smile on his lips. “I’m glad you feel comfortable enough to do that already. A lot of first-timers don’t do enough on their own, they just follow what everyone else does and don’t set a foot out of line.”

Jeremy nods. He feels the pressure to comply, not to stand out too much or act overly confident, but he also wants to feel like a person. Falling into a mindless routine without ever taking a moment to just _be_ is exhausting like nothing else. 

Even with the occasional early morning lark, the average day at sea is undeniably monotonous. Jeremy scrubs the deck until it practically shines, talking with Matt when the officers aren’t around to scold them, then returns to the task of reinforcing the base of the foremast that he’d begun yesterday. The _Bruin_ is a fine ship, but far from new. Several high-wear areas are in need of repair both above and below deck. It’s a grueling but still desirable job amongst the crew, since the officers will always recognize their work (unlike the thankless tasks of cleaning or preparing oakum). 

Jeremy’s hands quickly begin to ache from prying out nails and hammering new ones in their places. He feels a splinter in his palm, stinging slightly but not large enough to be visible, so he decides to see the cook that evening to ask if he can get it out. The hands are a nasty place for even a minor wound. He’ll probably have to recruit the help of the steward, Anders, since the cook is very particular about what he spends his time on but seems fond of his auxiliary and willing to entertain his requests.

Finally, Jeremy fastens the final cant-piece to the side of the mast and sits back to admire his handiwork. Chris appears as if on schedule to tug firmly on the side fishes and poke his fingers into the sappy part of the wood. The entire structure holds steady, not even creaking as the ship briefly dips, which earns Jeremy a smile and approval to knock-off for the day. 

Matt is already seated in the galley when Jeremy descends the staircase and sits down beside him. Supper has become a bright spot of the day, as it’s the only time when the crew can freely speak with each other. Some of them tell tales in the evenings, of course, leaning between bunks with hushed voices, but never as a large group as they do in the galley. It nearly makes up for the quality of the food.

At that moment, the cook, David, steps out with a tray of salt pork and water crackers. Anders follows close behind holding a tub of soup that seems much too heavy for him; his face is red from the strain of keeping it upright.

“Pea soup again?” Trent gripes when he sees its distinctive grey-green color. 

David sets his tray down with a clatter. “There are plenty of maggots I picked out of the bread earlier if you’d like an alternate source of protein.”

Trent grumbles but doesn’t say anything more. Anders begins to serve everyone their rations: two pieces of pork and a handful of crackers with a small cup of soup, enough to fill one’s belly so he can fall asleep but still feel a gnawing hunger in the morning. The sailor’s stomach grows used to such slim rations eventually, according to those who have experienced it, that or the mind stops paying attention to the pain of hunger. It’s curious that one can manage to eat half as much and work twice as hard as he did on land.

Jeremy soaks his crackers in his soup before eating them, a trick to make them more palatable that he’d learned from observing his crewmates. The water crackers are better than hardtack but still a project to chew and swallow when dry. The soup, on its part, tastes nothing of peas. 

“Hey, Jeremy,” Trent whispers as he leans across the table. “Want my soup?”

Jeremy takes a moment to think about it, mostly so he doesn’t seem too eager, and is about to say yes when Matt speaks first from beside him. 

“A word of advice, you should never just give anything away when you’re at sea. You’ve got to take the benefits when you get them, even a small bargain. People will take advantage of you if they know that they can.”

Trent raises his eyebrows and pulls his soup back toward his plate almost protectively. 

“See if you can get Brandon to trade some crackers for it,” Matt suggests. 

Jeremy respects Matt’s perspective too much to be upset at the loss of his free soup. It does make sense, even though the crew are all friendly with each other, that it’s on somewhat limited terms. 

“That advice goes for you, too,” Matt says to Jeremy as Trent wanders off toward the other end of the table. “Don’t be too nice.”

“I won’t,” Jeremy promises. 

Matt’s face breaks into a smile. “Well, you can still be nice to me.”

Jeremy bumps his shoulder against Matt’s and smiles back at him. He feels the warmth of camaraderie unfurling in his chest, the kind of feeling he always yearned for when he was in school. He never had any close friends, was always too busy helping his family. Moving away from his home as a teenager made it even harder. Yet, maybe, on a vessel in the middle of the ocean, he’s found a friend for life.

Trent returns with a smug smile and a mouthful of crackers.


End file.
